The timing, of course, could be a whole lot better as far as the Giants are concerned. Instead of having to force-feed Michael Strahan through four days of practice in a rushed attempt to get him ready for Sunday night’s season-opener in Dallas, Strahan could have reported a few weeks ago and eased into his 15th year in a Giants uniform.

That’s not the way Strahan went about his business, making yesterday’s first practice with the team a situation filled with urgency and uncertainty. For Strahan, though, his return came when it needed to come.

“I came back when the time was right,” Strahan said in his first comments since ending a 36-day holdout, or “a break” as he preferred to call it. “If Sunday works, then Sunday works. If it doesn’t, then that’s Coach’s decision. He is going to do what is best for me and for the team.”

Looking lean and sporting a throwback look of tight curls on top of his head and, for the first time, a trim beard and moustache, Strahan had no trouble getting back into the swing of things inside the locker room. Linebacker Antonio Pierce took one look at Strahan’s new scruffiness and, thinking back to Harrison Ford in a 1993 role, dubbed him “The Fugitive.”

“It’s like he hasn’t left at all,” said Justin Tuck, who figures to lose his starting left defensive end spot when Strahan is ready to go.

Oh, he did leave, failing to report for training camp in Albany on July 27, missing all four preseason games and triggering all sorts of conspiracy theories. He said he was seriously considering retirement. Others scoffed, pointing to the fact first-year general manager Jerry Reese in March denied Strahan’s request to add more money to his $4 million salary.

Sure, the fact Strahan, seemingly on cue, announced he wanted to continue his career after all the preseason drudgery was over with smells like rotten fish. He says he was waiting for “that feeling” and could not return until it hit him.

“As you train and you get ready leading up to the season, sometimes you wait for that feeling to come, and for me that feeling didn’t come when camp was there,” Strahan said, standing on a raised platform behind the west end zone inside Giants Stadium. “So instead of going out there and being half-hearted and probably getting hurt, or just not wanting to be there and leaving after initially showing up, I decided I have to do what is right for me and take my time and make sure that I want to do it.”

The feeling that eventually hit Strahan?

“I want to come out here and enjoy myself and play football and join my teammates and the fans and just do it; do it one more time,” he said.

Strahan, 35 and coming off a serious mid-foot sprain, said his father tried to convince him to retire. When he finally showed up, Strahan was asked a blunt question by Tom Coughlin: “Are you prepared to put your heart into what you are doing?” Coughlin sounded accepting of the response.

Early in practice, once the offense and defense separated, it was Tuck, not Strahan, who lined up as the starting left defensive end. Strahan worked with the second team.

Coughlin said Strahan did OK and “appears to be in good shape.” The heavier contact comes later in the week. Coughlin no doubt will wait until Saturday before deciding whether to remove Strahan from the roster exemption list and activate him for the game.

“Stray looked good,” Tuck said. “A lot of guys thought that he was just on the beach drinking margaritas and looking at pretty women, but he definitely knows what it takes to play in this league.”

As far as being upset with the Giants fining him for the time he missed – a total of $514,368 that was negotiated to about $200,000 – Strahan said it’s no big deal.

“I said, ‘OK, that is what it is, then take it out of my check, I’ll see you on Sunday,’ ” Strahan said.